Eminent Chancellor, on behalf of Council and Senate I present to you Jacob Michael Goldenberg, Q.C.
Jacob Goldenberg was born in 1900 in Bucowina, now part of Romania. He came to Canada in 1913, and received his law degree from our University in 1922. Since that time he has practiced law in Saskatoon/ and now is the most senior graduate of the College still in active practice.
Mr. Goldenberg is a very competent lawyer, but that could be said of many persons. Mr. Goldenberg is a man of great integrity, and again that could be said of many persons. Mr. Goldenberg is deserving of honour because he has been a great teacher and because he has always put others ahead of himself.
In his formal role, Mr. Goldenberg has been a lecturer at our law school for many years. President of the Saskatoon Bar Association, President of the Law Society of Saskatchewan, President of the Conference of Governing Bodies of the Legal Profession in Canada, and President of the Law Alumni Association. He was instrumental in establishing the Bar Admission Course at the University, and often lectures at special classes and seminars to law students and to members of the Bar. He helped to establish the Moxon Scholarship to support graduate work in Law. He continues to serve on the Board of Examiners of the Law Society of Saskatchewan. He has done all this while also serving as a civic leader and as a leader in his religious community.
Mr. Goldenberg has been a teacher in many other ways. In his early years as a counsel he often acted for the politically unpopular client when others were not inclined to be so generous. In the 1950's, he served as a part-time Magistrate, and from that experience came a public call for improvement in the position of Magistrates, something that finally is being achieved. Many of his suggestions to government are now part of the statutes of this Province. Long before "Law and the Layman" became a popular theme, Mr. Goldenberg was writing articles for the Western Producer and the National Farmers Union on "Farmers and the Law".
The mark of a professional must be that his life's goal is not success, but service to his fellow-man. By that criteron, Mr. Goldenberg is a true professional. He has been frank and outspoken with his clients, often telling them not what they want to hear but what he believes is right. Yet it is a lucky client who has him as his lawyer, because he has often given them more than legal advice and because his sense of dedication to his clients and his enthusiasm for the law are monumental.
Eminent Chancellor, I present to you Jacob Michael Goldenberg, Q.C., and ask that you will confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.